presentation skills qualities

17 Presentation Skills That Every Effective Presenter Must Develop

• Written by HIGH5 Content & Review Team
• August 8, 2024
• Professional skills

It’s no secret that effective presentations can help you get ahead in business. After all, what better way to show off your knowledge and expertise than by delivering a well-crafted presentation? The right presentation skills give you the ability to share your ideas with an audience convincingly and engagingly. Unfortunately, not everyone is born a natural presenter. If you’re not used to standing up in front of an audience, the prospect of doing so can be daunting. Fortunately, understanding your unique strengths can help you overcome these challenges and improve your presentation skills.

The HIGH5 strengths assessment is a powerful tool that can provide valuable insights into your natural abilities, allowing you to leverage your strengths and develop strategies to address areas for improvement. With the right guidance, there are a few simple things you can do to enhance your presentation skills and become a more confident and effective communicator. In this article, we’ll share some tips on how to do just that, allowing you to deliver an effective presentation. Let’s get right into it.

What are presentation skills?

Presentation skills are the abilities you need to deliver a clear and effective presentation. After all, a good presenter is someone who can communicate their ideas in a way that engages and motivates their audience. There are many different aspects to presentation skills, from knowing how to structure your talk to using visuals effectively, to dealing with nerves. Developing strong presentation skills will help you to communicate your ideas more effectively and make a positive impression on your audience.

Presentation skills are important because they can help you to communicate your ideas clearly and effectively. A good presentation can make a big impact on your audience and can help to persuade them of your point of view. Presentation skills are also important in other areas of life, such as job interviews, sales pitches, and networking events. Being able to present your ideas clearly and concisely can give you a big advantage over others who are not as confident in their presentation skills.

Importance and benefits of presentation skills

One of the most important reasons to recognize presentation skills is because they are a valuable asset for any profession. Good presentation skills can help you in your career by making it easier to sell your ideas, get promoted, and be successful in business. Identifying your unique strengths through the HIGH5 assessment can provide invaluable insights into your natural communication abilities, allowing you to leverage your strengths and develop targeted strategies to enhance your presentation skills. By understanding your strengths, you can tailor your approach to deliver more impactful and persuasive presentations, increasing your chances of success in any professional setting.

In addition, good presentation skills can also help you in your personal life by making it easier to give speeches, make presentations, and teach classes. In addition, recognizing presentation skills can also help you improve your presentations. If you are not aware of the importance of presentation skills, you may not be using them to their full potential. By taking the time to learn about presentation skills and how to use them effectively, you can make your presentations more effective and persuasive.

Here’s a list of benefits that come with good presentation skills:

• Increased confidence
• The ability to think on your feet
• Improved public speaking skills
• Enhanced written communication skills
• The ability to lead and motivate others
• Enhanced problem-solving abilities
• Improved negotiation skills
• Stronger time management skills
• Greater creativity
• The opportunity to make a positive impact on others

Pro Tip From HIGH5 Take the HIGH5 strengths assessment to gain a deeper understanding of your natural communication style and preferences. Use this knowledge to play to your strengths when preparing and delivering presentations, such as leveraging your creativity for engaging visuals or your analytical skills for structured content.

17 crucial presentation skills

Let’s now explore some practical examples of presentation skills that will help you ace your next big presentation.

Body language

Active listening, storytelling.

• Verbal communication

Stage presence

Self-awareness, facial expressions, avoid filler words, choose the right angle for standing, engagement with your audience, good eye contact, natural gestures, the use of visual aids, the ability to handle questions.

• Organization

Effective body language, including posture and gestures, enhances your message and engages your audience.

Active listening helps you respond appropriately and adjust your presentation based on audience feedback.

Storytelling is a great way to engage your audience and make your points more memorable. And while it might not seem like a traditional presentation skill, it can be extremely effective. If you possess strengths like creativity, communication, or persuasion, you may find it easier to weave captivating stories into your presentations.

The HIGH5 strengths assessment can help you identify these natural storytelling abilities and provide strategies for leveraging them to captivate your audience. So, if you can find ways to weave stories into your presentation, it’ll go a long way in captivating your audience and making your message more impactful.

Clear and concise verbal communication ensures your message is understood and retained by your audience.

Voice projection

Projecting your voice confidently ensures that your message is heard clearly by everyone in the room.

Good stage presence involves commanding attention through confident movement and engagement with the audience.

Being self-aware helps you identify your strengths and weaknesses, allowing for continuous improvement in your presentation skills.

Using appropriate facial expressions adds emotion and clarity to your spoken words, making your message more impactful.

Minimizing filler words like “um” and “uh” helps maintain your credibility and keeps your audience focused on your message.

Standing at the right angle, typically facing the audience while occasionally turning to your visuals, keeps the audience engaged and ensures they follow along with your presentation.

Another key presentation skill is the ability to engage with your audience. This means making eye contact, using gestures, and speaking in a way that is relatable and easy to understand. If you’re just standing there reading off a slide, chances are your audience is going to get bored pretty quickly. But if you can find ways to keep them engaged, they’ll be more likely to listen to what you have to say.

One of the best ways to engage with your audience is through eye contact. When you make eye contact with someone, it shows that you’re interested in what they have to say and that you’re engaged in the conversation. It also helps to build trust and rapport. So, if you can find ways to make eye contact with your audience members, it will go a long way in keeping them engaged.

Another great way to engage with your audience is through natural gestures. Using your hands and arms to gesture can help emphasize points and keep your audience engaged. Just be sure not to go overboard – too much gesturing can be distracting.

Visual aids can be a great way to engage your audience and make your points more clear. Using slides, charts, and graphs can help illustrate your ideas and make them easier to understand. Similar to using gestures, just be sure not to overdo it – too many visuals can be overwhelming and confusing.

At some point during your presentation, you’re likely going to get questions from your audience; how you handle those questions can make or break your presentation. If you’re able to answer them confidently and without getting flustered, it’ll show that you know your stuff.

But if you start to get tongue-tied or defensive, it’s going to reflect poorly on you. So, be prepared for questions and try to stay calm when answering them.

An organized structure

Another important presentation skill is having a well-organized structure. This means having an introduction, main body, and conclusion to your presentation. It also means using transitions between sections to help your audience follow along. If your presentation is all over the place, it’s going to be hard for your audience to stay engaged and they’ll quickly tune out.

Last but not least, confidence is one of the most important presentation skills you can have. If you’re not confident in what you’re saying, it’s going to show – and your audience is going to pick up on it. So, even if you’re not feeling 100% sure of yourself, try to project confidence. It’ll make a big difference in how your audience perceives you and your message.

Pro Tip From HIGH5 Use the HIGH5 assessment to understand your unique storytelling style and preferences. Incorporate personal anecdotes, analogies, or case studies that align with your strengths to make your presentations more engaging and memorable.

How to identify presentation skills?

To identify your presentation skills you will need the help of self-assessment tools and feedback from your colleagues or friends. One of the self-assessment tools that we recommend is the HIGH5 strengths test which will help you discover your strengths and talents. From there you can connect your strengths with presentation skills to see which strength boosts your skill.

The second way is also called peer feedback. Ask your colleagues, friends or close family members to give you feedback on your presentation skills. From there you can identify what presentation skills you have and what skills you need to improve.

How to improve presentation skills in the workplace?

The workplace is one of the most important places to hone your presentation skills. After all, in the business world, first impressions are key, and being able to deliver a polished and professional presentation can make all the difference in whether or not you’re successful. Here are a few tips to help you improve your presentation skills in the workplace:

Preparation is key

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s worth repeating. When you’re preparing for a presentation, take the time to do your research and gather all of the necessary information. This will help ensure that your presentation is well-organized and flows smoothly.

Be aware of your body language

Your body language speaks volumes, so it’s important to be aware of what you’re communicating with your nonverbal cues. Make sure you’re standing up straight, making eye contact, and using gestures appropriately. These small tweaks can make a big difference in how your audience perceives you.

Practice, practice and practice

One of the best ways to improve your presentation skills is simply to practice as much as you can. The more you present, the more comfortable you’ll become and the better you’ll be at thinking on your feet and handling questions from the audience.

Seek feedback

After each presentation, take some time to reflect on what went well and what could be improved. Seek feedback from your colleagues or boss, and consider taking the HIGH5 strengths assessment to gain insights into your natural abilities and areas for growth. This will help you learn from your mistakes, leverage your strengths, and continue to improve. By understanding your unique strengths, you can develop targeted strategies to enhance your presentation skills and make a more significant impact in the workplace. By following these tips, you can start to improve your presentation skills and make a positive impression in the workplace.

Pro Tip From HIGH5 After receiving feedback on your presentation, use the HIGH5 strengths assessment to identify areas where you excelled and areas for improvement. Develop an action plan that leverages your strengths while addressing your weaknesses, such as practicing more storytelling techniques if you have strong communication abilities or focusing on visual aids if you have strong creativity.

How do you highlight presentation skills in a resume and job interview?

Another important skill that is often overlooked is the ability to highlight presentation skills in both a resume and a job interview. This can be the difference between getting the job and not. When you are applying for a job, your resume is often the first thing that potential employers will look at. It is important to make sure that your resume includes any relevant presentation skills that you may have. You can do this by including any experience you have in public speaking, leading presentations, or teaching courses. If you do not have any experience in these areas, consider listing any other relevant skills that could transfer over into presenting, such as customer service or sales experience.

In addition to your resume, it is also important to be able to highlight your presentation skills during a job interview. This is often done through behavioral interviewing, where you will be asked to describe specific examples of times when you have presented in the past. It is important to be prepared for this type of question and to have a few examples ready to go. When you are highlighting your presentation skills, it is important to focus on any successes that you have had. This could be anything from getting positive feedback from an audience to successfully teaching a new course. No matter what the specific example is, it is important to focus on how you were able to positively impact the situation. This will show potential employers that you can effectively present information and that you are someone they would want on their team.

How to improve presentation skills in school as a student?

School students often have to present in front of their classmates and teachers, which can be a daunting experience, especially if you don’t feel confident in your abilities. However, understanding your unique strengths can help you approach presentations with greater confidence and effectiveness. The HIGH5 strengths assessment is a valuable tool that can provide insights into your natural abilities, allowing you to leverage your strengths and develop strategies to address areas for improvement. With the right guidance, there are some things you can do to improve your presentation skills while you’re still in school.

Join a club or organization that requires presentations

This will force you to get up in front of people regularly and hone your skills. If no club or organization at your school requires presentations, start one! Give speeches in front of the mirror. Practicing in front of a mirror can help you identify any nervous habits you have (like fidgeting or pacing) and correct them before you have to give a real speech.

Use note cards instead of a script

Reading from a script can make you sound robotic and unauthentic. Note cards will help you stay on track without sounding like you’re reciting memorized lines.

Record yourself giving a presentation

Then, watch the recording back to see how you can improve. This exercise can be painful, but it’s one of the best ways to identify your weaknesses and work on them.

Find a mentor

Ask a teacher or another adult you trust to give you feedback on your presentations. They can offer helpful tips and criticism that will help you improve. By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a great presenter in no time!

Pro Tip From HIGH5 As a student, take the HIGH5 strengths assessment to identify your natural communication and leadership abilities. Use this knowledge to play to your strengths when preparing and delivering presentations, such as leveraging your analytical skills for structured content or your creativity for engaging visuals.

Presentation skills FAQ

What are the 4 types of presentation skills.

The 4 types of presentation skills are:

• Visual aids
• Non-verbal communication
• Listening skills

What is the rule of presentation?

The rule of presentation is to always keep the audience in mind. This means knowing who your audience is, what they want to hear, and how to best deliver your message so that they will listen and be able to understand it.

What are the 5 presentation skills?

The five essential presentation skills are clear communication, audience engagement, confident delivery, effective use of visuals, and proper body language.

What are 10 qualities of a good presentation?

A good presentation is clear, concise, engaging, well-structured, visually appealing, confident, interactive, relevant, well-paced, and memorable.

Every great presenter must have the majority of presenting skills already learned. It is beneficial for each individual to have some level of presentation skills, to be able to showcase and demonstrate their project, ideas, and plans to their friends, family members and colleagues.

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Ideas and insights from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning

Powerful and Effective Presentation Skills: More in Demand Now Than Ever

When we talk with our L&D colleagues from around the globe, we often hear that presentation skills training is one of the top opportunities they’re looking to provide their learners. And this holds true whether their learners are individual contributors, people managers, or senior leaders. This is not surprising.

Effective communications skills are a powerful career activator, and most of us are called upon to communicate in some type of formal presentation mode at some point along the way.

For instance, you might be asked to brief management on market research results, walk your team through a new process, lay out the new budget, or explain a new product to a client or prospect. Or you may want to build support for a new idea, bring a new employee into the fold, or even just present your achievements to your manager during your performance review.

And now, with so many employees working from home or in hybrid mode, and business travel in decline, there’s a growing need to find new ways to make effective presentations when the audience may be fully virtual or a combination of in person and remote attendees.

Whether you’re making a standup presentation to a large live audience, or a sit-down one-on-one, whether you’re delivering your presentation face to face or virtually, solid presentation skills matter.

Even the most seasoned and accomplished presenters may need to fine-tune or update their skills. Expectations have changed over the last decade or so. Yesterday’s PowerPoint which primarily relied on bulleted points, broken up by the occasional clip-art image, won’t cut it with today’s audience.

The digital revolution has revolutionized the way people want to receive information. People expect presentations that are more visually interesting. They expect to see data, metrics that support assertions. And now, with so many previously in-person meetings occurring virtually, there’s an entirely new level of technical preparedness required.

The leadership development tools and the individual learning opportunities you’re providing should include presentation skills training that covers both the evergreen fundamentals and the up-to-date capabilities that can make or break a presentation.

So, just what should be included in solid presentation skills training? Here’s what I think.

The fundamentals will always apply When it comes to making a powerful and effective presentation, the fundamentals will always apply. You need to understand your objective. Is it strictly to convey information, so that your audience’s knowledge is increased? Is it to persuade your audience to take some action? Is it to convince people to support your idea? Once you understand what your objective is, you need to define your central message. There may be a lot of things you want to share with your audience during your presentation, but find – and stick with – the core, the most important point you want them to walk away with. And make sure that your message is clear and compelling.

You also need to tailor your presentation to your audience. Who are they and what might they be expecting? Say you’re giving a product pitch to a client. A technical team may be interested in a lot of nitty-gritty product detail. The business side will no doubt be more interested in what returns they can expect on their investment.

Another consideration is the setting: is this a formal presentation to a large audience with questions reserved for the end, or a presentation in a smaller setting where there’s the possibility for conversation throughout? Is your presentation virtual or in-person? To be delivered individually or as a group? What time of the day will you be speaking? Will there be others speaking before you and might that impact how your message will be received?

Once these fundamentals are established, you’re in building mode. What are the specific points you want to share that will help you best meet your objective and get across your core message? Now figure out how to convey those points in the clearest, most straightforward, and succinct way. This doesn’t mean that your presentation has to be a series of clipped bullet points. No one wants to sit through a presentation in which the presenter reads through what’s on the slide. You can get your points across using stories, fact, diagrams, videos, props, and other types of media.

Visual design matters While you don’t want to clutter up your presentation with too many visual elements that don’t serve your objective and can be distracting, using a variety of visual formats to convey your core message will make your presentation more memorable than slides filled with text. A couple of tips: avoid images that are cliched and overdone. Be careful not to mix up too many different types of images. If you’re using photos, stick with photos. If you’re using drawn images, keep the style consistent. When data are presented, stay consistent with colors and fonts from one type of chart to the next. Keep things clear and simple, using data to support key points without overwhelming your audience with too much information. And don’t assume that your audience is composed of statisticians (unless, of course, it is).

When presenting qualitative data, brief videos provide a way to engage your audience and create emotional connection and impact. Word clouds are another way to get qualitative data across.

Practice makes perfect You’ve pulled together a perfect presentation. But it likely won’t be perfect unless it’s well delivered. So don’t forget to practice your presentation ahead of time. Pro tip: record yourself as you practice out loud. This will force you to think through what you’re going to say for each element of your presentation. And watching your recording will help you identify your mistakes—such as fidgeting, using too many fillers (such as “umm,” or “like”), or speaking too fast.

A key element of your preparation should involve anticipating any technical difficulties. If you’ve embedded videos, make sure they work. If you’re presenting virtually, make sure that the lighting is good, and that your speaker and camera are working. Whether presenting in person or virtually, get there early enough to work out any technical glitches before your presentation is scheduled to begin. Few things are a bigger audience turn-off than sitting there watching the presenter struggle with the delivery mechanisms!

Finally, be kind to yourself. Despite thorough preparation and practice, sometimes, things go wrong, and you need to recover in the moment, adapt, and carry on. It’s unlikely that you’ll have caused any lasting damage and the important thing is to learn from your experience, so your next presentation is stronger.

How are you providing presentation skills training for your learners?

Manika Gandhi is Senior Learning Design Manager at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at [email protected] .

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